The movie, "The Hours," begins in England, 1923. It and opens with Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) writing a farewell letter to her husband before she drowns herself in the Ouse River near their home, "Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel that we can't go through another of these terrible times and I shan't recover this time"." The beginning dramatically illustrates the severity of her suffering "and her hopelessness of recovery." In the movie, Virginia exhibits elements of abnormality with host of symptoms and behaviors that is encountered with major depressive disorder. Aside from being severely depressed, Virginia experienced heightened irritability by those around her and exhibited maladaptiveness with how she was constantly reminded to eat by her doctors and had sleeping at night. During periods of depression she would leave her home for months, even years at a time, resulting in social discomfort from being isolated from society for so long. In the letter to her husband she expresses guilt for being an emotional burden, while the inability to focus affected her work as a writer, "I begin to hear voices, and can't concentrate so I am doing what seems the best thing to do." "Since hearing voices is not a symptom of major depression disorder, it suggests that perhaps there was comorbidity with other illnesses, which no doubt contributed to her feelings of going mad. .
Virginia was also not trusted to go out alone; previous actions remained consistent with abnormal behavior as she demonstrated impulsiveness and unpredictability, while prior attempts in suicide proved that she was self destructive and dangerous. One scene conveys that behavior while in one of her fits, she flees the house abruptly without telling anyone. Her husband frantically searches for her and eventually finds her at the train station, sitting alone. This scene is especially powerful as it expresses the extent of her suffering; she voices her disdain for the doctors that failed to properly diagnose her illness, along with the awareness of her own demise and her general contempt for living.
